Off-World
by HouseOfYork
Summary: A routine misson off-world goes horribly wrong. RM/JK


**Hello. This is my first SGA story. It's just a short one; maybe one more chapter after this. **

**Enjoy.**

**Off-World**

**~x~**

_Jennifer Keller was in love with him. For once in his life Rodney was unable to string a single coherent thought together. He could only stare in wonder at the beautiful, shivering woman in his arms. Almost a year of agony disappeared in an instant. He had dreamed of this moment so many times, but that's all he had ever thought it would be, a dream. Slowly, the blissful numbness of his mind began to subside and he reached out to caress her cheek. Her skin was smooth, soft to the touch, just like he imagined it would be. She closed her eyes, a look of contentment spreading across her face. Tentatively he leaned in closer and caught her lips in a slow, hungry kiss..._

"McKay!"

Rodney vaguely heard his name being called. Jennifer began to fade and the warmth her nearness had evoked drained away. All of a sudden he was aware of intense pain ripping through his abdomen; his chest rose and fell rapidly, gasping for a decent lungful of air. He struggled to open his eyes but found that his vision was blurred when he finally managed to opened them.

A pair of strong hands grasped his arms. "McKay – talk to me, buddy!"

Rodney tried to speak but blood gurgled in his throat.

"Get a medic in here now!" Sheppard shouted. "He's been shot!"

It was hard to concentrate, to stay awake. He could feel himself slipping back into the darkness. Maybe Jennifer would be there again. Jennifer – the love of his life. Sometimes he had to pinch himself, to remind himself that she had actually said _yes_. He had only gotten halfway through a completely muddled proposal, when she had thrown her arms around him, kissed him and said _yes_. It was not a moment he would easily forget. Unlike his last, disastrous attempt at a proposal, there had been no uncertainty, only the fear that Jennifer would say no. Logic, not love, had prompted him to propose to Katie Brown; after all, wasn't that what most people did after dating someone for over a year?

The darkness began to give to way light. Then Rodney saw her again...

_Jennifer took his breath away as she almost glided up the aisle, holding onto her father's arm. Good God she was beautiful, how did he wind up getting this lucky? Their eyes met and suddenly nothing else around him mattered; only she mattered. As she came level with him he knew he was supposed to say something about how stunning she was, but he just kept smiling like an idiot. Somehow, though, he managed to regain his wits and took her hand, all the while thinking, this is my best friend, and the woman I'm spending the rest of my life with..._

Someone shook him.

"McKay!"

It was Sheppard. The darkness receded once more and Rodney did his best to focus on Sheppard's face.

"That's it, Rodney; you've got to stay awake." John's eyes were wild with panic. "Help's on its way."

"What's taking them so long?" said Ronon, his voice as gruff and as impatient as ever.

"They will be here momentarily," Teyla's calm tone interjected.

"I could've carried him to the infirmary myself by now."

"And risk injuring him further?

"He's bleeding all over the floor, what could be worse?"

"Not helping, Ronon!" John said, somewhat testily.

"I'm just saying..."

Rodney's gaze sought out the imposing Satedan. He paced back and forth like a caged lion, agitation rolling off him in waves. Ronon never ceased to surprise him. There were times when Rodney truly believed he merely only tolerated his presence, but when trouble knocked at the door Ronon was the most loyal of friends. And whatever objections Ronon may have had concerning Rodney and Jennifer, secret or otherwise, seemed to have died a death, especially since he was now involved with Amelia Banks. Jennifer had patched them up more than once after a sparring match in the gym. She had laughed one afternoon, telling Rodney that they were worse than a pair of Klingons. Rodney had cringed at the thought, but was very thankful at the same time that Jennifer, like him, preferred battles of the intellectual kind.

Fear suddenly coiled around him, constricting tighter and tighter with every breath he took. What if he never saw Jennifer again, never got to touch her one last time, to feel her lips on his. Did she really know how deeply he loved her; how incredible his life was with her in it? Tears of anguish and regret welled in his eyes. This wasn't the way it was supposed to end. But if it was to end this way, then he wanted her to know that his last thoughts were of her.

"Jennifer..." he wheezed.

Something akin to sadness flickered across Sheppard's eyes. "She's off-world, buddy, remember..."

"Need...to...tell..." he managed a few words before coughed and spluttered, choking on his own blood.

"You can tell her yourself. If you don't pull through this she's going to kill you...and then she'll kill me. So I'm counting on you, Rodney."

"Tell...her...I...love..."

Sheppard's eyes quickly hardened with anger. "No! I'm not going to listen to this, you hear me. So stop talking like that."

There was a sudden clamour in the Gate room and Sheppard quickly moved aside to make room for Carson Beckett. Rodney could barely register what was going on anymore. The voices seemed so distant. And then he was weightless for a moment.

"Easy, lads," Carson said as two medics lowered Rodney onto a gurney. "Bag him and get him straight to the O.R. We need to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding."

"Is he going to be all right, Doc?" Sheppard asked.

"I hope to God he is," Carson said then followed after the gurney being wheeling out of the Gate room.

**...**

"Dr Keller, this is Major Lorne, come in."

Jennifer tapped her earpiece. "This is Keller. What are you doing here, Major?"

Lorne's voice crackled over the com again. "You're to make your way to the Stargate right away. You're needed back at Atlantis immediately."

"I'm rather busy, Major. Can't you –"

"I'm under orders, Doc, and I'm not leaving here without you."

"Just give me another half an hour, Major, and then I'll –"

"Dr Keller, please make your way to the Stargate now," Lorne said, his regimented tone making it clear that negotiation was not an option.

With an irritated sigh, she said, "All right, Major, I'm on my way."

After packing away her equipment and making sure all of the data she had collected was safely stored on the tablet, she slung her backpack over her shoulder. In the year since Atlantis had returned to the Pegasus galaxy, Jennifer had been adding to the database of common illnesses and diseases unique to this quadrant of the universe. Her intention was to engineer vaccinations, not only for those from Earth, but for also for the many human civilisations they encountered.

It went beyond her remit as Atlantis' CMO, but she enjoyed the research and the challenges it brought with it, not to mention the satisfaction she felt whenever she successfully procured a viable vaccination. Very few understood her desire to spend countless hours staring at cell samples under a microscope, or trawling through endless reams of test results. Carson Beckett understood. In fact, he often joined her in her mission to save the galaxy one vaccination at a time.

And then there was Rodney...

Jennifer smiled at the thought of her arrogant, egotistical husband. To him, medicine wasn't even a real science, a fact he repeatedly reminded her of. Some days he almost drove her crazy, but she would not change him for anything. With Rodney there was no pretence; his intentions were never veiled or double-minded. And yet, underneath that brash exterior there was a man whose courage, loyalty and compassion never ceased to amaze her. Some refused to see it, others were not privileged enough to have Rodney's trust to see it; a few, though, like John and Teyla, and even Ronon, saw it. He really was a wonderfully brilliant man – and he was _her_ man.

Soon Jennifer reached the Stargate, where Major Lorne and his team were waiting for her.

"Major, are you going to tell me what this is all about?" she asked, attempting to keep her irritation to a minimum.

Lorne shook his head, and Jennifer swore she saw a flash of sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Dr Keller; Colonel Sheppard is waiting for you in the Gate room, he'll explain everything."

Worry began to gnaw at her. What could possibly be so important that she was being recalled from an off-world mission? And why wasn't SGA-3 being recalled too – the team she had tagged along with? Surely if there was an outbreak of some kind on Atlantis they would have been warned of it and then told to sit tight. Besides, Carson was in the city; he knew as much, if not more, about retroviruses than she did.

Something felt wrong, horribly wrong. Without any further prompting from Lorne, Jennifer plunged into the event horizon. In a fraction of a second she was in the Gate room. Sheppard hurried to meet her and the gnawing inside of her transformed into full blown anxiety.

"What's going on?" she asked him.

"It's Rodney..."

Jennifer felt sick. "What's happened to him?"

John levelled his gaze with hers. A grave look swept over the normally collected colonel's features. "He's been shot."

A strangled cry caught in Jennifer's throat. "Is...he..."

"He's still alive. Beckett's got him in the O.R. now."

Jennifer dropped her backpack on the floor, not caring about her research in that moment. The only thing that mattered was Rodney. Her legs had the consistency of water, but she forced herself to move, with John at her heels. The distance to the infirmary had never seemed so long, but having the city's military commander with her had proved to be an advantage. At one point he had ordered two corporals out of a transporter and told them to wait for the next one.

One they had reached the infirmary wing Jennifer broke into a dead sprint. She had almost reached the operating room when a pair of strong arms held her back.

It was Ronon.

"Let go off me," she cried. She could see Rodney on the operating table through the observation window.

"Beckett's dealing with it," Ronon said.

Tears streamed down her face. She was growing desperate. "Let go – I have to help him!"

Ronon only tightened his hold. "You're not in any state to help anyone."

"John," she said as the colonel finally caught up to her, "Tell him to let go."

"Only if you promise to stay put," John said.

She pursed her lips defiantly.

"Listen, Doc, Beckett knows what he's doing. I know you want to be in there helping too, but Rodney needs someone working on him with a clear head, and right now you've got anything but that."

Jennifer struggled to free herself, but it was to no avail. Ronon had her in a vice-like grip and he was not showing any sign of slackening his hold. In the end, she could only watch helplessly as Carson fought to save her husband. It scared her to see Rodney so still, so quiet. This wasn't one of his hypochondriac moments; this was real, terrifyingly real.

She didn't know what she would do if she lost him. The very thought caused her stomach to lurch violently. For the first time since Ronon had grabbed a hold of her, she was thankful for the support of his arms. She wasn't sure she would have had the strength to stand on her own. There was so much she wanted to tell Rodney. Unconsciously she splayed a hand over her stomach. There was something she _needed_ to tell him, something she _should_ have told him. But she had wanted to wait until they were both back from their latest off-world missions. Now she wished she had told him before he had left yesterday. Perhaps knowing he was going to be a father would have given him an even greater reason to fight to stay alive.

Suddenly, the worst imaginable thing happened: the line on the heart monitor went flat.

"RODNEY!" she screamed.

Time ground to an agonising halt as Carson ordered for the defibrillator to be charged, and then he placed the panels on Rodney's chest. His body jerked as the charge went through him, but still the line remained flat on the heart monitor. Carson barked for the charge to be upped.

"Come back to me, Rodney," she sobbed, "Please don't leave me alone."

After the third charge a small blip appeared on the heart monitor. It continued to get stronger and Jennifer, mentally and emotional spent, sagged against Ronon. Being a doctor, she knew he wasn't out of the woods yet; so many things could still go wrong. The next twenty-four hours were going to be the worst of her life.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed by when Carson came out of the operating room.

"How is he?" Jennifer asked, her voice shaking.

"I'll not lie to you, love, he's in a bad way," Carson said.

Jennifer half-glared at him. "Carson, I'm a _doctor_; tell me what I need to know."

"I had to perform a tube thoracostomy."

Sheppard raised his brow. "A what?"

"It's one of the most brutal things I'm legally allowed to do to another human being."

Both Sheppard and Ronon winced, even though neither of them had any idea what the procedure entailed.

Jennifer swallowed hard. "What about a hemothorax?

"No, love," Carson said, "We just had the one problem to deal with."

The confidence in Carson's voice calmed her somewhat.

"Can I see him?" she asked.

Carson placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you let the nurses get him all cleaned up first." He looked up at Sheppard. "Take her to get a wee cuppa; I'll radio you when we've brought Rodney out onto the ward."

Jennifer offered him a watery smile. "Thanks, Carson, but I'd rather stay here."

"Are you sure, love," he said, knowingly. Carson had been the one to have discovered the _anomaly_ in her bloods during a routine check-up.

"Yes, I'm sure," she sighed. "Though, if someone wants to get me that cup of tea..."

"I'm on it," John said.

"Me too," Ronon added.

"Well, since there's the two of you going, "Carson said, "You can bring me back a cuppa with a wee nip of the good stuff in it."

Sheppard cracked a smile. "Rodney's finally driven you to the bottle, huh?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation Jennifer laughed softly. Of course, she would never have allowed anyone else off with a comment like that, but it was John. Apart from Carson, there was no one else whom Rodney respected or trusted more than John.

Carson laughed too. "Laddie, I've been at the whiskey since I was a wee bairn."

Ronon arched an eyebrow. "Ah, Montgomery Scott – it makes sense."

"What do you mean by that?" Carson asked, folding his arms.

"Nothing at all." John quickly tugged at Ronon's arm. "Come on – let's get the docs sorted with their drinks."

**...**

A short while later Jennifer sat at Rodney's bedside holding his hand. She lightly traced circles on the cool skin of his hand with her thumb, hoping that even in his unconscious state he would find comfort in it. His chest rose and fell steadily, although he still wore an oxygen mask. She kept a watchful eye on his vitals, ready to spring into action at the slightest change in them. But, for the past hour they had remained stable. It was a good sign.

Her thumb brushed across his gold wedding band. She remembered how nervous he had been about meeting her father. Her dad was a typical small town guy; big, imposing and maybe a little too overprotective of his only daughter. But after her mom died she was all he had. Though, to be fair, she didn't really give her father the same kind of sleepless nights as other girls her age did. While they were out partying, she was buried up to her neck in medical textbooks and journals. She had many regrets about her adolescence, about all of the 'normal' stuff she missed out on. But, even if she could, she would not veer from the path she had chosen.

By the time the short visit with her dad had ended, Rodney had managed to worm his way into his good books. And the last phone call she had made to her father at the SGC, before boarding the _Daedalus_, had confirmed his approval of Rodney...

'_Honey,'_ he had said, _'I never thought I would be able to say this, but I think you've found a man who's worthy of you. I saw the way he looked at you; it's the same way I used to look at your mother – like she was something so precious I'd give anything to keep her safe and happy. And then there's the fact I didn't understand a word of what you two were talking about over dinner – nano what's-its and molecular whatevers. He's not intimidated by a smart woman; says a lot about him. Anyway, honey, you can tell him from me that he's all right, but if he doesn't treat you right, I've got a shotgun in the shed..._

Jennifer smiled to herself. As far as she was concerned her father would never need to reach for his shotgun. Rodney had made her very happy and he was quite the closet romantic. The Puddle Jumper ride and the picnic under the stars had just been the beginning; walks along the untouched beaches and lazy afternoons by the lake shore had followed. It only deepened her love him, especially since she knew he hated nature; his natural habitat was amongst laptops, control panels and control crystals.

Rodney groaned and Jennifer's eyes snapped to his face. Her heart started to beat faster. His eyelids fluttered for a moment and then he cracked them open.

"Hey, you," she said, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

"Hey...you," he replied weakly.

Having preformed her fair share of tube thoracostomies during her medical career, she could guess how much pain he must be in. Carson had given him morphine, although he had been careful with the dosage; he did not want a repeat of the incident when Rodney had an arrow shot at his gluteus maximus.

"You had me worried for a while back there," she said, fighting the emotion rising in her throat.

He drew in a raspy breath. "Feels...like...hell..."

Jennifer blinked back the tears threatening to fall. "I know, sweetheart, it's going to be sore for a while."

"Take...stupid...mask..."

He attempted to reach up and pull the mask of his face, but Jennifer carefully leaned across him and forced his arm back down.

"You need to keep it on," she said gently, "You're still too weak to breathe on your own."

She was surprised when he didn't try to put up a fight, which only served to remind her how seriously injured he was. He closed his eyes again as if that small movement had sapped whatever little energy he had.

Jennifer brought his hand to her lips and kissed it softly. "Keep fighting, Rodney – for the three of us."


End file.
